>> she knows stuff. >> what did you learn today? >> i learned despite what everybody says it really is the middle class, stupid. and i think that segment was right on point. whoever can capture that moment with the middle class, they win. >> michael steele, thanks very much. if it is way too early, it is time for "morning joe. yts" but now it is time for "the dai daily rundown" with chuck todd. >> republicans get ready for yet another try at repealing the president's health care law. how hard will they push on this into november? mitt romney beats back speculation on who he will pick as his running mate and when. could it come sooner than we think? we are in a 96-hour window, folks. president obama touts a new tax cut pitch. the mayor of joe biden's hometown has to make drastic moves to try on balance the books. folks, this is a story we are keeping an eye on as far as the

national political debate is concerned. good morning from washington. it is wednesday, july 11, 2012. i'm chuck todd. boy, have we packed a great show for you. let's get to my first read of the morning. in just over an hour, mitt romney will speak to the naacp's annual convention in houston. likely to bring a message about economic empowerment to the nation's premier civil rights group. 2008, john mccain won just 4% of african-american voters. down from the already dismal 11% george w. bush picked up in 2004. romney speaks today as less about the probably impossible task of moving african-american vote nears his column than it is about making his candidacy more appealing to white suburban voters. the naacp convention has been dominated by republican driven voter i.d. efforts in the states that many african-american voters see and intends to disenfranchise them. romney's already difficult task got harder yesterday when attorney general holder

delivered a blistering speech framing texas' proposed voter i.d. law as a segregationist effort to erode african-american turnout. >> under the proposed law, concealed handgun licenses would be acceptable forms of photo i.d. but student i.d.s would not. many of those without i.d.s would have to travel great distances to get them and some would struggle to pay for the documents they might need to obtain them. we call those poll taxes. >> that reference was not in holder's prepared remarks. after holder spoke the convention pass ad resolution saying that the contempt citation that the republican house passed against him was a traffic stay of justice. don't expect romney to bring up any of those things today. he will focus on unemployment in the calf can't

american community which is 14.4% and make an economic case as he did yesterday in mesa county, colorado. dismissing the president's call to let the bush era tax rates expire for americans making over $250,000 a year. >> this week the president added insult to injury. with another kick in the gut. the very time the american people are seeing fewer jobs created than we need, the president announces he will make it harder for jobs to be created. >> while the president fired back at his own campaign event, cedar rapids, ohio. >> to give me another tax break or warren buffett another tax break or to give mitt romney another tax break, that would cost about a trillion dollars. >> there it is. there's your lines. debate when it comes to the tax cut issue. and i think he got a little bit of preview of what october will look like when the two of them

go one-on-one. the friday job numbers or mitt romney's tax returns in offshore accounts? the drumbeat by the obama campaign and national democrats to do this at any given time on romney to release more than a single year of returns is getting louder and they may have already succeeded at putting romney at least on the defensive. i will show you that in a minute. after the president brought the transparency issue up in an interview on monday. tuesday, it was vice president biden who played the attack dog and in a speech before a latino group in las vegas. he again brought up mitt romney's father, george romney. >> his father released welfare years of tax returns because he said, and i quote, one year could be a fluke. perhaps done for show. his son has released only one year of his tax returns.

like father like son. he wants you to show your papers but he won't show us his. >> today in its lead editorial called mr. romney's financial black hole, the new york times writes -- quote, mr. romney's tarnishing an important political tradition. one step by his father george romney who released 12 years of tax returns in 1967 by coming to keep the sources of his income in the shadow. obama campaign is trying to create the same moment they created in january which then did spur the romney campaign to release one tax return and a pledge to release one more, republicans are now conceding romney should probably put more returns out there. former mississippi governor haley barbour. >> does mississippi -- >> tax returns, should he release the tax returns? >> i would. but -- should it be an issue in a campaign? i don't think it amounts to did. >> i this is clearly having an impact on romney. combination with the romney's campaign continued reap lentless

attack on bain which the president repeated yesterday in iowa. >> governor rom new has experienced companies called pioneers, business of outsourcing. >> for the first time yesterday, romney shot back with a counterattack at a town hall in colorado, i'm rubber, you are glue. i know you are but what many i defense? >> this president has been outsourcing a good deal of american jobs himself. if there is an outsourcer in chief is the president of the united states not the guy who is running to replace him? >> romney was referring to loan guarantees and grants made in the 2009 stimulus. the obama campaign quickly fired back charging that romney's actual plans endorse outsourcing whiteful obama wants to discourage the practice bunt can't get it through congress. arguing again romney profited by bain's investments. very friendly yes from the

audience. romney defended his personal wealth. >> why is the obama team and liberal media want us to think that we should be more angry with what you do with your money than what obama has done with mine? >> i'm not going to apologize for success at home and i'm not going to apologize for america abroad. >> after saying he would not apologize for his success, romney did go on to make the most detailed defense of his time at bain he has done in months. >> the business turned out to be far more successful than i ever would have imagined. the profits from the business overwhelmingly went to the people that invested with us, pension funds and even a church pension fund. not my church, someone else's. in the process, we -- we were able to create jobs that are -- our own little business. and some of the places we invested were able to create jobs as well. >> as you can see, he took that moment and went farther than maybe members of his own campaign might have expected at

that town hall. don't overlook what could be the biggest story of the day. it goes to the core of the question of how the story of strapped cities and states will play politically. represent as huge opportunity for republicans to make their budget case and it is all happening in the vice president's hometown. unions are suing at the city of scranton, pennsylvania had to slash pay for 400 munistal employees, down to minimum wage. $7.25 an hour. >> i can go down the street and scoop ice cream at a high school kid for the summer is making $8.50 an hour 37 i have firefighters running into burning buildings at $7.25. >> scranton faces $16 million in red ink. the city's democratic mayor argues he had no choice other ton cut employee pay. even though a judge ordered him not to. as he told nbc's ron allen. >> the state doesn't have -- the federal government doesn't have any money. unfortunately those two governments are different than

the city's. tomorrow i have to pick up the garbage. tonight the police cars are out there. >> republicans will look at the situation and say it is being brought on by the entitlement of government workers, unions are bankrupting cities and towns. democrats will argue this is why the federal government needs to intervene. they have to give states more help. make month mistake, the scranton story pitting a democratic mayor against unions, joe biden's hometown, is one republican couldn't have scripted any better. today san bernardino becomes california's third city in weeks to authorize a bankruptcy. battle for november goes to capitol hill as house republicans force another vote to repeal or replace some or all of president obama's health care reform. while the sparks flew at last night's debate. >> mr. speaker, this is our 31st vote to repeal all or part of the affordable care act. it is time to stop the tantrums and grow up and work together on

americans' number one priority, creating jobs and getting economy turned around. >> people say we should focus on jobs instead of this bill. this is about jobs. cbo is telling us it can cost us 800,000 jobs. >> interesting. i remember -- obama argument there for a while at the white house. everybody says we should focus on the economy and health care is the economy. nbc's capitol hill core department luke russert is here with more. luke, two big moments today are going to be the speaker and the former speaker. but then we are going to actually have a vote itself and how many democrats are going to jump aboard. what do we have? >> we at least expect four, chuck. yesterday when they voted on the rule which is the rules for debate today. power democrats joined with republicans that was born mcintyre and kissel, three of those guys. essentially are voting to say we are not in favor of the president's health care law. we probably won't see that many more, i heard maybe as many as ten and we are most likely not

expecting any from the republican side either. talking to a lot of folks on the gop side, why are you having this vote. it is now over 30 times we had some variation of this vote. and the reasoning is that i spoke to folks had a involved in the gop leadership say look, we want every single independent out there, if you look at the polling, a lot of independents are very much split on the health care law or are against it. we want every single independent out there in the united states to know republicans are the part in favor of a -- all-out repeal of the health care law. we want to imprint that in people's minds. that's why we have done it so many times. it is also a great red meat for our base. we want to continue this message of republicans equal repeal and go -- ride that all the way into november. they do feel it is a winning issue for them, chuck. >> what are we going to hear from boehner and pelosi today? >> expect to hear the fiery rhetoric from boehner we have seen all along within this health care debate. also hear a vaulted defense of it from minority leader pelosi.

it is funny, chuck, first time this happened was 2009. and it happened again on the floor in 2010. it happened again in 2011. it will happen again today. this is the fourth variation of the boehner versus pelosi on health care title fight, if you will. all that being said, it is not -- there's not an expectation that this is going to be some huge moment that will fuel either side in the immediate and immediate -- time. what they do feel, though, long term connected to independents on the gop side, and democrats also, lot of them are saying, look, supreme court said all this. we are happy to have this fight because we are going to point it at deficit reduction. we want to make sure everyone knows that if their health care provided for and not at the e.r., they are not freeloading, quote, unquote, off of taxpayers. so it is just -- the -- this is the -- it is all coming together now in july. but we don't expect another appeal vote on the vote floor. the last time you hear the issue, at least, debated in congress for a long time.

and we will hear it -- presidential debate, chuck. >> is this the last time we hear congress talk about health care? luke russert on capitol hill today for what kwobcould be a rhetorically fiery day. the fight for control of the senate. how do republicans plan to get back into power? the man in charge of that for republicans, texas senator jo corynin joins me next. a look at the schedules of the president and mitt romney today. you see the president meets with democratic leaders today. this is all about framing how to do the votes on the tax cut issue. anoth mitt romney will be speaking to the naacp.

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senate republican leader mitch mcconnell says his party has a 50/50 chance of taking control in november. and they have plenty of seats on their wish list to reach that goal. our team political unit first read, we put together this list of the top ten best pickup opportunities for the republicans in the battle for senate control. every one of seats the democrats can hold. makes the gop's mountain harder to climb and the republicans have some work to do on their end as well. trying to hold on to four seats of their own that could be in play. maybe a fifth in arizona. and under those races. the president wins re-election, the magic number for republicans is four. they will need only a three seat gain if romney takes the white

house because the vice president would break any 50/50 tie. john cornyn joins me now. senator, i want to start with this and talk about some of the policy issues popping up as well. senator mcconnell said 50/50. you look at this list, you basically have ten targets. they have five. 2-1 advantage there for your side in targets. why isn't it better than 50/50? >> well, like our position better than our democratic friends. i think senator mcconnell is being cautious. we know the vast majority of the american people haven't focused on the november 6 election yet. and so we expect this to clarify as we get closer and as you know, in august, we a number of primaries. and some of that is going to -- who gets nominated will depend on the quality of candidate will determine, i think, our chances of success in november. >> two of those primaries are wisconsin and missouri. care to share who your preferences are in either of

those primaries? >> as you know, i'm neutral in the primary. that's up to the primary voters. i think that they jealously guard their prerogative to make their own choice and will respect that. we will be all behind those no, ma'am meese in both of those places. claire mccass i will most endangered democratic senator. tammy baldwin in wisconsin is the most liberal member of the house of representatives. i like her chances in both of those states. >> in national journal this morning, under the headline the republican senate stragglers and compares the recruiting, recruits from 2010 to some of your recruits this year and says that they really -- this year's crop falls short. there has been a lot of disappointments and he points to ohio and josh mandel. what do you say? you are in charge of both cycles. do you miss the recruits from 2010? >> well, we had a great class of 2010 but we had some

disappointments as well. and i can think of several cases where if we had a different no, ma'am me we would have picked -- likely picked up the seat in '10. this time i think our -- nominees or -- going to be uniformly electable. high quality. so i disagree with the analysis. i think that all of our candidates in 2012, given the field we have in those primaries, the likely nominee, are electable. especially in light of the challenges the democratic candidates have breaking with the president over this tax decrease on the middle class. >> i want to ask about taxes. what's wrong with having two votes? what's wrong with separating -- it seems -- as if, you know, the president is saying, hey, let's pass the 250 and below now. everybody agrees on that. but let's punt the debate on the wealthy tax cuts until the election. you can argue the election will determine that. what's wrong with splitting the two? is it a fear of having a separate vote on the hire tax

brackets? >> if the president were sincere in wanting to have a real debate about taxes and a vote on how we make our tax system fair, flatter, and simpler, we would be all in. but this is more gamesmanship like the buffett rule that would raise enough revenue to run the federal government for 11 hours. this is not a serious attempt to engage in tax reform. if the president was serious bit, he would have taken up the commission report on business taxes which have caused us to outsource a lot of jobs in america rather than to have them here at home because of the punishment. >> call his bluff and pass the middle class thing and call his bluff. take it off the table. >> i don't think that the president is serious about this. we know president -- we know leader reid is not serious about it. this is all about gamesmanship. 118 days before the election. after the election, we will take up tax reform and we will reform our tax code and make it more competitive and bring down larger rates and help grow the economy back and created jobs. >> are you getting rid of some

deducti deductions for higher income voter -- i mean, are you -- i guess, for folks making over $1 million, are they going to be paying more in taxes to the federal government in the next would years? >> i think pat toomey made a substantial contribution to this debate by increasing revenue, limiting some of the benefits available to high-end income earners. it demonstrated our good faith in entering into a debate and a resolution of this issue. as you know, the goalpost just kept getting moved. and indeed, the president and his party insist order a trillion dollars in new taxes. and that was than going to happen. >> it is fair to say you believe that tax -- the tax bill, total tax revenue, coming in for people paying -- earning more than a million dollars, that will go up regardless of who wins the election? is that what you are saying? >> i think -- if -- as part of a process, taking all the tax expenditures and putting them on the table, i agree with alice, the omb director under president

clint clinton. let's start with a clean slate and then force industry and other individuals to come in and justify these various tax subsidies expenditures and credits because right now as you know the tax code is riddled with them which causes marginal tax rates to be much higher. we are important bringing down everybody's tax rates and taking a look at all of the tax expenditures in the process i looked around at your senate candidates. many of them released three, four, five years of tax returns. it seems that you -- it is possible, what do you advise senate republican candidates to do when it comes to their tax returns? how many years do you suggest that they do having scott brown's done six and i think in your senate race in texas, ted cruise did five. >> well, i -- i think it is up to the individual candidates. what they feel comfortable with. i think it is by and large a distraction. in this -- the presidential race, it is clear that president obama wants to talk about

anything other than his record and the facts obamacare was determined to be a tax on the middle class in addition to 22 other tax close obamacare will impose upon the middle class and litany of broken promises he made when he told people 3 1/2 years ago that you would be able to keep what you have and if you like it and that you would not raise premiums on families of four. he said we would reduce them by $2,500. he's -- this is a distraction from his litany of broken promise. >> in 2002, you released -- 2002 you released eight years. why did you do that? >> i was entirely comfortable doing that. i thought that it was the right thing for me to do. but, again, it wasn't the main point of contention in the election. i felt like eliminating distraction is the right thing do and talk about the issues of my constituents and voters cared about. >> you think governor romney ought to eliminate this distraction? >> well, i think he ought to do everything he can to force the president to defend his record as well as the people who are

running for re-election, democrats that voted for tax increase on the middle class by voting for obamacare in addition to 22 other taxes. -- you know, it is interesting, too, chuck, when the -- president talks about raising taxes on people making $250,000 or more, which -- includes a whole lot of small business, small businesses, about a million of them, the democratic candidates running for re-election are all over the map. and indeed, many of them agreed, senator schumer, the line ought to be much higher. it is creating a lot of disarray among democratic candidates running for reelection this time. >> i will have to leave it there. running out of time. senator cornyn, top republican running the campaign committee our side. thanks for coming on this morning. all right. which high-profile democrat has a wife who is not so keen on house political career? that's just one of our things that's on the radar this morning that you want to miss. democrats failed to oust wisconsin walker.

they are getting an interesting consolation prize. we will explain. first, today's trivia question. how many former u.s. presidents are not buried in the united states? [ male announcer ] let's say you need to take care of legal matters. wouldn't it be nice if there was an easier, less-expensive option than using a traditional lawyer? well, legalzoom came up with a better way. we took the best of the old and combined it with modern technology. together you get quality services on your terms, with total customer support. legalzoom documents have been accepted in all 50 states, and they're backed by a 100% satisfaction guarantee. so go to legalzoom.com today and see for yourself. it's law that just makes sense.

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in spanish. [ speaking spanish ] >> new poll out by the portland press press herald shows maine voters overwhelming will you favor president obama over mitt romney. polls show 14-point lead important the president. more important story in main, of course, is that senate race. it shows that it still has independent streak. former independent governor king holds a huge lead over his rival in the race to replace retiring republican senator olympia snowe. 55% of those polled already support king. maine twice elected an independent governor. maine cast the nation's highest percentage of votes for third party presidential candidate ross perot. king does look like a shoo-in. after losing their bid to

oust republican governor scott walker in wisconsin recall, democrats will get a consolation prize. they finally take over the state senate. more than a month after votes were cast, republican state senator wayneguard says he won't challenge his loss. it clears the way for democrats that hold the majority in the senate for the rest of this year. finally, as you know, bob kerrey is trying to get his old job back in nebraska. in a race to replace retiring senator ben nelson. not everyone is thrilled about his decision. according to not just report his wife has written an essay for "vogue" that's causing quite a stir. a former writer for "saturday night live" wrote the piece for the july issue says she has misgivings about her husband's run. jokes about feeling out of place in nebraska. boy, the type of thing -- many ways, it is typical of bob kerrey. he never sort of went by consultant script when he ran

for president, when he ran for office before. so maybe it shun be a surprise not everybody on team kerrey in the house hold is on board this idea of him moving back to omaha and doing all these things. sarah spoke her mind on that one. we will see how much play it gets in nebraska. senator kerrey says it has not so far. we are following the money. taking a deep dive into the latest on where the campaigns and super pacs are spending their millions. folks, this is how you really see where the battleground is. i'm going to do a mac here on what happens if romney loses virginia and ohio. forget the gender gap. we will tell why you it is the marriage gap that could be the real key to who wins the white house.

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today as deep dive a look at where the money is going in this election year. what trends we have been watching in key states. let's start with total ads spend

thing week, president obama is well ahead of mitt romney. let me show you here. as you can see, 7.5 million important the week going through to july 15. almost 2-1 here over romney. but when you throw in crossroads, americans for prosperity to republicans super pacs, you see and throw in p total. but obama is wrought spending romney. i will point to this here in a minimum. moving on. we now look at the most saturated markets for this week. look at this list. colorado has three markets in the top four. colorado springs, second week in a row. that's very important development. florida has two. virginia, ohio, and look what's back. north carolina. hadn't been there in lee weeks. i will tell you more about that in a minute. here is what it was a week ago. as you see, we you a the colorado trend developing. north carolina had fallen off. nevada is another one that fell off there. and moving on, one more week before as you can see, ohio had more of a role two weeks ago. again, florida and nevada. few things i want to point out

about what is going on in this current market. romney's actually outspending obama. romney campaign in the obama campaign in north carolina. that's what's boosting those north carolina numbers. i want inform focus on two states here. the two of the three i think most critically important stats of virginia, ohio, florida. last three, super battle grounds, if you will. ohio spending and virginia spending. you talk to republicans and they will acknowledge they are behind in both of these key swing states and will point to the obama spending. we will look at this. in ohio, the obama campaign, 22.4 million. romney, 7.3 million. again, the republicans super pacs made up the total, total money has been the same. but what -- talk to romney allies they will sit there and say but the concentrated message of bam, obama campaign, it made a difference. virginia, huge disparity here. as you can see, more3-1. obama campaign versus the romney campaign. but look at the total here. the republican ad spending dwarfing the total democratic ad

spending. again, this goes to this issue of disparity of messaging on the republican side. lee different. look at the different groups that have spent general election money here. all of them with their own different message. i can tell threw is some, some concern among some romney allies of maybe some of this ads -- some of the super p kra ads aren't as effective as they should be. so that brings me when you look at ohio and virginia, clearly these attacks -- attack ads by obama's campaign have taken some damage here. what happens if the president wins both ohio and virginia? what's romney have to do? let me put tonight this column. look where it puts the president here. come on, virginia. light up for me. and that's why we love technology. it only puts him two short. then have you romney has to swoop everything. from nevada to colorado and iowa and wisconsin and north carolina and to new hampshire.

with him at 260 with the president at 268. if he can't figure out how to make up this ground, what has been a tough thing to make up for him in ohio and virginia, you look at this. the president needs one more of any of these. hispanic vote, colorado, nevada. iowa, original love fair with the president. although we have seen the numbers. is it wisconsin? where polling has con us istently shown the president ahead or even new hampshire? the point is that's what the map looks like if virginia and ohio have taken off the table. not off the table, folks. these are very close races. the point is that the president is ahead and is ahead because of the negative ads. we are talking beef steaks. first, the white house soup of the day. this is a good summery soup. crab corn. you can always follow the show on facebook. ♪

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good morning, students. today we're gonna continue... a little renewed momentum over romney's vice presidential pick. guessing game is as much about timing as whether romney will name his choice earlier than the traditional time which would be around the convention. slated for late august. here is how romney fielded that question yesterday. >> i can't give you the timeline for that. that's a decision we will make down the road. nor could i give you the individual and i could tell you that -- the person i choose, you will look at and say well, that's a person who could be president if that were necessary. >> well, some folks wrote that saying hey, maybe it will come sooner than we think. bill burton is with priorities u.s. action, pro-obama super pac. jean cummings is the deputy government editor with bloomberg

news and jim geraghty is with the national review. all right. jim, i'm going start -- i think -- let's -- i think the public short list for now seems to be in somewhat of an order. importantman, pawlenty, ryan, jindal, rubio. is that top five? would you disagree? >> i would not disagree with any of them. this looks like the pokes who are most extensively -- when you ask them about are you being vetted, their lips get very tight and quiet. >> that tells you more than not being vet. >> if they were, you know, if they want to be vetted they would be like, hey, come vet me. you don't hear that from any of the guys suggesting the process is under way. >> when you look at the window of burton, when you did this, you think about you want to travel the country together with your running mate. when did you this four years ago, just take us into it a little bit. you plotted out -- knew who you would name or not. you wanted -- you wanted a few days of campaigning before your

next -- block out what, three, four, five days? >> the ideal is that you get the biggest possible bang for your buck out you your new nominees. you go into your targeted markets across the country and probably not going to be that dissimilar from the top ten markets. you saw where everybody is spending their ad money now. >> yeah. >> that's -- >> jean, let's look at the math here. governor romney is leaving for london. week after next. which means we are in a window here if he wants to do the way bill just described it, next week. that's it. so that means he got to announce it by monday. >> exactly. >> if he is doing it before the olympics, doing it early. >> exactly. the reporting i had done, people were target -- really looking at early august. and if you look at romney's calendar, you see that there are some black weekends. there have been several of them. and there are a couple of more on the calendar which suggests that is an opportunity for him to bring people in, to chat with

them. i agree with you. if he is doing it before, he has to do it next week. if he does it next week, they better hope that they get the biggest bang for their buck because as soon as the olympic games begin, it is gone. >> one of the supposedly upsides of doing it early is you have another person out there helping you raise money. but couldn't you argue that those five -- i mean, i look -- we have been tracking all of their schedules. paul ryan is raising money for romney. rubio today -- all those guys suddenly seem less motivated to do these things if they are not the pick. >> not only that. when you have a guy who -- lot of buzz around them like rubio, florida, that's normal. rubio go with him to pen opinion. when you bring one of those names to a completely different swing state, just to do an event, just to do a speech -- >> not even with him. on their own. >> by itself that generates a lot more buzz and excitement. like once the question is settled. other thing is of these names, rubio and jindal are the two that might make people say he is a very i-ing guy. huge fan of bobby jindal. nothing wrong with the other

guys. maybe ryan has -- little bit of charisma. most have good solid guy, decent records. experience, not too experienced in the middle area. >> i have -- in my hands on a piece of direct mail in virginia from mitt romney as a fund-raising mailing. i never spent a day in washington you can't trust people in washington to fix washington. you need to bring people in from the outside. i looked at that paragraph and -- i said to myself, that's not good news for portman. >> that isn't good news for rob portman, you are right about that. portman brings other strengths. as much as he seems kind of boring, one of romney's weaknesses he also has never dealt with foreign affairs. rob portman sits on the senate committees that oversee some of the defense and speaker national issues. and so he brings part of that to the table. of course, his home state of ohio, simply wonderful. and he happened to go to israel earlier this year.

so he's been sort of -- you know, checking off the list. >> methodically almost. >> that's right. and preparing himself. positioning himself in a way that would make him moration rackive. >> back to the five. somebody on there that's -- hmm, that would be a smart pick. >> well, your point about the direct mail piece, i think shows that everybody on that list would underscore some weakness romney has. that's the -- romney -- >> strength that you think -- >> well, romney's probably -- probably part of the consideration. for portman, are you really injecting the bush administration into this debate in the with a way it wants? pawlenty, injecting massachusetts fiscal mess? for each one of these guys you rattle off some problem that underscores another weakness that romney has. >> what -- and jim, counter cases, what message he wants to send some message. portman, the governing message, ryan -- lesser -- somewhat of that, too. but also younger, could -- fire

up the base. message of pawlenty outglide yeah. i was going say when you mentioned that ryan jumps out as somebody that spent not a ton of time in washington, couple terms in the house. hard to say. of that list the guy that shines, you know, doesn't have any -- jindal was a congressman for two, three terms. but i believe was out before the worst of the bush years. i think i put his record as governor of louisiana and reforms post katrina up against anybody else. strikes me as a strong list. obviously different taste will matter. my decision doesn't matter as much as mitt romney's. >> all right. we are going to talk about a bit of this new marriage gap poll and also ad spending. you have an interesting new memo out and poll data from priorities. first, trivia. we asked how many former u.s. presidents are not buried in the united states? yes. it was a trick question. the answer is four. jimmy cart the four former nats are still alive. we did this because somebody

sent this in. jm hudson sent in the question. why not? we throw it out there. it's the summer. do you have a political trivia question you think we should ask? not all of them need to be trick questions.

let's bring back the panel. you know, we always want to tell you apparently about a gender gap. the gender gap, gender gap, gender gap. one gap that has been there. it's bigger. it's been there for longer and we don't talk about it as much. the good folks at quinnipiac made a big deal out of it. it's the issue of married versus single. democrats have known this for a long time. they've been -- a lot of people have been beating us up in the media because we don't ask marriage. but it's a real divide in american politics. basically it's a massively

double-digit lead for mitt romney among married voters and a double-digit lead for the president among single voters. >> it's a big divide and it's always been there. this is more pronounced than you've seen in recent elections. we'll see whether or not those numbers move around. but this is traditionally what it's been in the modern era. >> some of it splits. you can split it along suburban or urban or close in suburbs versus the outer suburbs. this really seems to be starker than sometimes -- we don't spend enough time on this. >> we don't. but the campaigns actually do. and married moms are a key component in this race. and if you watch romney's advertising and some of the president's advertising, they are talking to married moms. that's a swing set. we went back at bloomberg and looked at -- >> it's married moms. folks with children under the age of 18 living at home? >> yes. >> and they swung in 2008, 2010

and they are up for grabs right now, too. >> do you buy that? >> do mestic instability leads to a welcoming of government services to fulfill the role that used to be fulfill ed. that's why every wedding this summer is good news for the republicans. >> you are saying where you've run ads. you feel like you've seen in these places where mitt romney's numbers have moved south. they've gone negative. we've seen it in our own polling. is -- what i'm surprised as the republican superpac ads aren't having the same impact. why? >> the main asset that mitt romney brought to this race was his business experience. now much more of a liability. the republican superpacs are doing this widely disparate message on all sorts of things. >> are you hearing chatter that some are concerned the republican superpac ads aren't

working? >> they've been active with the state and local races and senate races. the conservative cry is we have to take the senate. probably an argument the messages should be sharpened. the message the economy isn't succeeding, we get that. now what? >> big game. that is the so what and now what. shameless plugs go ahead. >> little rocky rung stingrays are going to the divisional swim meet this afternoon. we're going to wish them all luck so they can get all-star times. >> bill? >> awesome "new york times" editorial about secrecy. mitt romney's tax returns. >> mr. geraghty? >> happy birthday to my brother who is like me, without the filter. >> how about that? >> that's it for "the daily rundown." tomorrow, all the reaction and analysis from today's big house vote. coming up next, chris jansing. bye-bye.

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